I’m not the only one impressed with Claire Keegan’s spare, beautifully written novels. If you don’t want to read my review, check out Alexandra Alter’s article in The New York Times, http://bit.ly/3X0manJ.

Keegan, the author of Small Things Like These, a Booker Award nominee, takes us into one short summer in the life of the unnamed narrator. She’s the daughter of a hardworking woman, who is often pregnant, and a father who seems to gamble or drink away profits, and often lies. There’s little money to support all the children, and the mother is pregnant again, so the narrator’s father drives her across Ireland to Wexford, where her mother’s family lives. There, John and Edna Kinsella welcome her into their home. Edna is her mother’s sister. With no children in the household, the narrator finds it a totally different life where she doesn’t have to work all day, except to help her aunt. There’s time for her to race to the mailbox, to spend time learning to read better. And, there’s more food for a growing girl. There is also a secret, although her aunt tells her there are no secrets in the house, because secrets mean shame. But, a neighbor reveals there is a story her aunt and uncle never revealed.

How does a child return home to family after discovering a family that actually wants her? Keegan’s moving story provides no answers. And, it’s an interesting question, revealing a part of little-known Ireland. In families where there were too many children and not enough food, a child might be given to relatives who had none. That child receives attention and privileges that they would never have had in the home where they were born.

By giving no name to the narrator, Keegan shows the anonymity in a family with too many children and not enough resources. It’s a powerful tool for a short, compelling book. Check out Foster. It won’t take you long to discover heartache.

“Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award, then the world’s richest prize for a story…Foster is now part of the school syllabus in Ireland. This is the first publication of the original text in the US.”

Foster by Claire Keegan. Grove Press, 2022. ISBN 9780802160157 (hardcover), 128p.

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